News tagged with maple

You've heard about flower power. What about tree power? It turns out that it's there, in small but measurable quantities. There's enough power in trees for University of Washington researchers to run an electronic ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Maple tree seeds (or samara fruit) and the spiraling pattern in which they glide to the ground have delighted children for ages and perplexed engineers for decades. Now aerospace engineering ...

The seeds that drop from maple trees each fall, whirring softly to the ground like silent one-winged helicopters, are the inspiration for a new kind of flying machine that could be useful for military information-gathering.

University of Rhode Island researcher Navindra Seeram has discovered 34 new beneficial compounds in pure maple syrup and confirmed that 20 compounds discovered last year in preliminary research play a key role in human health.

The twirling seeds of maple trees spin like miniature helicopters as they fall to the ground. Because the seeds descend slowly as they swirl, they can be carried aloft by the wind and dispersed over great ...

In the northern hardwood forest, climate change is poised to reduce the viability of the maple syrup industry, spread wildlife diseases and tree pests, and change timber resources. And, according to a new ...

Fewer days for making maple syrup. Twenty-five years with more snow for skiing. Summer heat stress for dairy cows. These are a few of the forecasts from the Vermont Climate Assessment, the nation's first ...

New research from North Carolina State University shows that urban "heat islands" are slowly killing red maples in the southeastern United States. One factor is that researchers have found warmer temperatures ...

As the climate warms this century, maple syrup production in the Northeast is expected to slightly decline by 2100, and the window for tapping trees will move earlier by about a month, reports a Cornell study.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Unnoticed by the nearby residents of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, tiny leaf beetles that flit among the maple and willow trees in the area have just provided some of the clearest evidence yet that ...

Past disturbances, such as logging, can obscure the effects of climate change on forest ecosystems. So reports a study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper, explor ...

An innovative new maple spout developed by the University of Vermont's Proctor Maple Research Center with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture secured by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, will have a dramatic ...

Global warming is already affecting the earth in a variety of ways that demand our attention. Now, research carried out at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem indicates that many tree species might become ...

Maple

Acer (pronounced /ˈeɪsər/) is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.

Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in Sapindaceae. The type species of the genus is Acer pseudoplatanus (Sycamore maple).

There are approximately 129 species, most of which are native to Asia, with a number also appearing in Europe, northern Africa, and North America. Only one species, the poorly studied Acer laurinum, is native to the Southern Hemisphere. Fifty four species of maples meet the International Union for Conservation of Nature criteria for being under threat of extinction in their native habitat.

The word Acer derives from a Latin word meaning "sharp" (compare "acerbic"), referring to the characteristic points on maple leaves. It was first applied to the genus by the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in 1700. The earliest known fossil maple is Acer alaskense, from the Latest Paleocene of Alaska.